Then Big Joe squalled with fear. “It’s buried out by the front gate,” he cried. “For the love of Christ, don’t kill me!”
Danny and Pilon went out the front door and in a few minutes they came back, carrying the canvas bag. “How much did you take out?” Danny asked. There was no inflection in his voice at all.
“Only four, Honest to God. I only took four, and I’ll work and put them back.”
Danny leaned down, took him by the shoulder, and rolled him over on his face. Then the friends went over his back with the same deadly precision. The cries grew [96] weaker, but the work only stopped when Big Joe was beaten into unconsciousness. Then Pilon tore off the blue shirt and exposed the pulpy raw back. With the can-opener he cross-hatched the skin so deftly that a little blood ran from each line. Pablo brought the salt to him and helped him to rub it in all over the torn back. At last Danny threw a blanket over the unconscious man.
“I think he will be honest now,” said Danny.
“We should count the money,” Pilon observed. “We have not counted it for a long time.” They opened Big Joe’s gallon of wine and poured the fruit jars full, for they were tired from their work and their emotions were exhausted.
Then they counted the quarters out in piles of ten, and excitedly counted again. “Pirate,” Danny cried, “there are seven over a thousand! Thy time is done! The day is come. for thee to buy thy candlestick for San Francisco!”
The day had been too full for the Pirate. He went into the corner with his dogs, and he put his head down on Fluff and burst into hysterical sobs. The dogs moved uneasily about, and they licked his ears and pushed at his head with their noses; but Fluff, sensible of the honor of being chosen, lay quietly and nuzzled the thick hair on the Pirate’s neck.
Danny put all the money back in the bag, and the bag under his pillow again.
Now Big Joe came to and groaned, for the salt was working into his back. The paisanos paid no attention to him until at last Jesus Maria, that prey to the humanities, untied Big Joe’s thumbs and gave him a jar of wine. “Even the enemies of our Savior gave him a little comfort,” he excused himself.
That action broke up the punishment. The friends gathered tenderly about Big Joe. They laid him on Danny’s bed and washed the salt out of his wounds. They put cold cloths on his head and kept his jar full of wine. Big Joe moaned whenever they touched him. His morals were probably untouched, but it would have been safe to prophesy that never again would he steal from the paisanos of Danny’s house.
The Pirate’s hysteria was over. He drank his wine and his face shone with pleasure while he listened to Danny make plans for him.
[97] “If we take all this money into town, to the bank, they ‘’ will think we have stolen it from a slot machine. We must take this money to Father Ramon and tell him about it. Then he will buy the gold candlestick, and he will bless it, and the Pirate will go into the church. Maybe Father Ramon will say a word about him on Sunday. The Pirate must be there to hear.”
Pilon looked distastefully at the Pirate’s dirty, ragged clothes. “Tomorrow,” he said sternly, “you must take the seven extra two-bitses and buy some decent clothes. For ordinary times these may be all right, but on such an occasion as this you cannot go into the church looking like a gutter rat. It will not be a compliment to your friends.”
The Pirate beamed at him. “Tomorrow I will do it,” he promised.
The next morning, true to his promise, he went down to Monterey. He shopped carefully and bargained with an astuteness that seemed to belie the fact that he had bought nothing in over two years. He came back to Danny’s house in triumph, bearing a huge silk handkerchief in purple and green and also a broad belt studded profusely with colored glass jewels. His friends admired his purchases.
“But what are you going to wear?” Danny asked despairingly. “Two toes are out of your shoes where you cut holes to ease your bunions. You have only ragged overalls and no hat.”
“We will have to lend him clothes,” said Jesus Maria. “I have a coat and vest. Pilon has his father’s good hat. You, Danny, have a shirt, and Big Joe has those fine blue pants.”
“But then we can’t go,” Pilon protested.
“It is not our candlestick,” said Jesus Maria. “Father Ramon is not likely to say anything nice about us.”
That afternoon they convoyed the treasure to the priest’s house. He listened to the story of the sick dog, and his eyes softened. “—And then, Father,” said the Pirate, “there was that good little dog, and his nose was dry, and his eyes were like the glass of bottles out of the sea, and he groaned because he hurt inside. And then, Father, I promised the gold candlestick of one thousand days to San Francisco. He is really my patron, Father. And then there was a [98] miracle! For that dog wagged his tail three times, and right away he started to get well. It was a miracle from San Francisco, Father, wasn’t it?”
The priest nodded his head gravely. “Yes,” he said. “It was a miracle sent by our good Saint Francis. I will buy the candlestick for thee.”
The Pirate was very glad, for it is no little thing to have one’s prayer answered with a true miracle. If it were noised about, the Pirate would have a higher station on Tortilla Flat. Already his friends looked at him with a new respect. They thought no more of his intelligence than they had before, but they knew now that his meager wits were supplemented with all the power of Heaven and all the strength of the saints.
They walked back up to Danny’s house, and the dogs walked behind them. The Pirate felt that he had been washed in a golden fluid of beatitude. Little chills and fevers of pleasure chased one another through his body. The paisanos were glad they had guarded his money, for even they took a little holiness from the act. Pilon was relieved that he had not stolen the money in the first place. What terrible things might not have happened if he had taken the two-bitses belonging to a saint! All of the friends were as subdued as though they were in church.
The five dollars from the salvage had lain like fire in Danny’s pocket, but now he knew what to do with it. He and Pilon went to the market and bought seven pounds of hamburger and a bag of onions and bread and a big paper of candy. Pablo and Jesus Maria went to Torrelli’s for two gallons of wine, and not a drop did they drink on the way home either.
That night when the fire was lighted and two candles burned on the table, the friends feasted themselves to repletion. It was a party in the Pirate’s honor. He behaved himself with a great deal of dignity. He smiled and smiled when he should have been grave, though. But he couldn’t help that.
After they had eaten enormously, they sat back and sipped wine out of the fruit jars. “Our little friend,” they called the Pirate.
Jesus Maria asked, “How did you feel when it happened? [99] When you promised the candlestick and the dog began to get well, how did you feel? Did you see any holy vision?”
The Pirate tried to remember. “I don’t think so-Maybe I saw a little vision-maybe I saw San Francisco in the air and he was shining like the sun—”
“Wouldn’t you remember that?” Pilon demanded.
“Yes—I think I remember—San Francisco looked on me—and he smiled, like the good saint he is. Then I knew the miracle was done. He said, ‘Be good to little doggies, you dirty man.’ ”
“He called you that?”
“Well, I was, and he is not a saint to be telling lies.”
“I don’t think you remember that at all,” said Pablo.
“Well—maybe not. I think I do, though.” The Pirate was drunk with happiness from the honor and the attention.
“My grandmother saw the Holy Virgin,” said Jesus Maria. “She was sick to death, and I myself heard her cry out. She said, ‘Ohee. I see the Mother of God. Ohee. My dear Mary, full of grace.’ ”
“It is given to some to see these things,” said Danny. “My father was not a very good man, but he sometimes saw saints, and sometimes he saw bad things. It depended on whether he was good or bad when he saw them. Have you ever seen any other visions, Pirate?”